much less
77
3.9
- idiom
:
mucho menos
- How are we gonna find her, much less stop her?
- much less come to college
Examples
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Most people do not know what biodiversity means, much less understand why it matters.
Academic text (1995) -
Where you come from now is much less important than where you're going.
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We are so much less fixed than we think we are.
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This one is much, much less expensive.
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Those people will do much less in life than you will.
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It's one that has had much less attention.
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And those things are much less controversial than the other things.
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What you can observe is much less than what actually exists.
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They have a skill which makes them much less dependent on foreign aid.
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I didn't think I would finish the project on time, much less receive praise for it.
Synonyms
185
3.4
To say that one thing is even less likely or possible than another
How Emphatic
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines the intensifier 'much' with the comparative 'less' to yield the clear compositional meaning 'to a much lesser degree' or 'even less', which directly matches its use to introduce something even less likely or possible. This construction is cross-linguistically common (e.g. Spanish 'mucho menos') and follows regular degree-comparison patterns, so a B1 learner who knows the words should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Much less gives a simple two-step picture: if the first thing is not true or possible, the second thing is 'even less likely'. Think of someone who cannot lift a small box; you would not expect them to lift a heavier box, so much, meaning 'a lot', with less shows the second thing is even less possible.